Porous borders

The two men tagged as the masterminds in the nightclub bombings that killed 202 people in Bali, Indonesia on Oct. 12, 2002 arrived in the Philippines sometime in 2003, according to intelligence officials.

Dulmatin and Jemaah Islamiyah cohort Umar Patek fled to Malaysia with their families, then entered the Philippines through Bongao, Tawi-Tawi.

This is according to Dulmatin’s Indonesian wife Istiada Oemar Sovie, a.k.a. Amenah Toha, who was captured by the military last Tuesday in Patikul, Sulu.

Sovie was apprehended together with two of her sons in Barangay Tanum. A tipster had led soldiers to a hut that the terror suspects, their families and members of the Abu Sayyaf had just abandoned in their continuing flight from military pursuers in Sulu.

Using the same bloodhounds that had followed the scents of American missionaries Gracia and Martin Burnham as they were taken by their Abu Sayyaf captors from Basilan to the Zamboanga peninsula, a piece of clothing left behind in the hut in Patikul led pursuing soldiers to Sovie.

When questioned, the woman spoke only Bahasa and could not show identification papers. The Indonesian wife of the other Bali bomber Umar Patek, named Nurhaina, escaped by pretending she was a deaf-mute.

How two of the most wanted terrorists managed to slip easily into the Philippines through our southern backdoor, bringing with them their families and their expertise in bomb making, should be a cause for national alarm.

But no alarm bells will ring unless terrorism claims among its victims a prominent individual, the loved one of some VIP or a bunch of foreigners.

And even when the alarm bells are sounded, there is no certainty that we will finally get serious in preventing terrorist attacks.

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Sulu has long been a no-man’s land. Poverty and lawlessness have made the province a sanctuary for pirates, gunrunners, smugglers and, in recent years, Islamic extremists.

Security officials tell me that the peace and order situation in the province as well as in neighboring Tawi-Tawi is so bad Customs and immigration officials are scared to be assigned to the two provinces.

Such poorly guarded national entry points do not escape the attention of violent extremists who are steeped in the ways of globalization.

Recently security forces intercepted several sacks of ammonium nitrate concealed in cigarette boxes that were being shipped from Sulu to Zamboanga. Ammonium nitrate is a key ingredient in the manufacture of fertilizer but is also used in making powerful bombs — the kind used by Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma.

If the shipment was meant for legitimate use, why was it not covered by proper documentation, and why was it camouflaged as cigarettes, which carry higher import duties than fertilizer ingredients?

A worrisome aspect for security forces is that the shipment was from Sulu to Zamboanga — a movement that indicated it came from another country. Who is sending sacks of bomb-making materials to the Philippines?

The ammonium nitrate was intercepted shortly after the military found an abandoned shack in Sulu that looked like a makeshift chemical laboratory. When ordnance experts from the US military were called in, our security forces were told that the equipment was for fashioning improvised explosive devices or IED.

The bloodhounds and their replacements-in-training, a corps of younger Belgian Malinois, might yet get Dulmatin, Umar Patek and Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani. But they have already imparted their deadly knowledge to acolytes.

The terrorists are out there, they are spreading their knowledge about bomb making, and they are ready to kill. Can we prevent them? We cannot even guard our borders.

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Visas are not required for travel within Southeast Asia among citizens of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. But that doesn’t exempt anyone from having his arrival and departure duly recorded. This we have failed to do in the islands of Sulu, Tawi-Tawi and even Basilan.

Terrorists sneaking into the country through Mindanao can then move freely all the way to Metro Manila, where they might even find a local wife as they work on their next attack.

We are blissfully unperturbed. It’s no case of blissful ignorance. We do remember the ferry bombing in Manila Bay that killed over a hundred — it still holds the world record for the worst peacetime maritime terrorist attack. We remember the bus bombing in Makati on Valentine’s Day. We still remember the deadly attack on the Light Railway Transit as well as three other spots in Metro Manila in December 2000.

But there is no urgency to preempt more attacks. Frustrated counterterrorism officials tell me that this is because so far, no policy-maker has been killed or has lost a loved one in a terrorist bombing.

Our security forces cannot even hold on long enough to Dulmatin’s wife unless she is charged as an illegal alien, in which case she can be detained for months by immigration officials prior to her deportation to Indonesia.

Sovie, scared to face reprisals for the Bali bombing in her native country, has reportedly opted to be placed in the custody of ISAFP or the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines rather than face deportation.

Philippine authorities should be scrambling to plug the loopholes that allowed her to sneak into the country together with her husband, Umar Patek and his family, and who knows how many other illegal aliens.

We see no such urgency in undertaking preventive action.

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This is probably good for Sulu, where the government, with foreign assistance, is trying to create a secure environment to jump-start development.

Col. James Linder of the US Special Forces, who ended his stint last week as commander of US troops in Mindanao, has always been more upbeat about prospects for peace in Sulu than the average Filipino in Metro Manila.

"There is a bigger chance of being hit by a billboard in Manila than being hit by a terrorist in Sulu," he told me shortly before he left.

But Sulu has posed a greater challenge to security forces than Basilan, whose predominantly Christian population suffered from atrocities perpetrated by the Abu Sayyaf for nearly a decade.

Moderate Muslims condemn violence, and terrorism cannot be simplified as a religious issue, but the Abu Sayyaf made it a point to target Christians in Basilan for beheading, mutilation, rape and pillage. The Abu Sayyaf has been driven out of Basilan, but it continues to fight for its sanctuary in Sulu.

Unless the government starts bringing law and order to Sulu and plugging those porous borders, the terror threat will continue to grow.